


A Solemn thing within the Soul

by middlemarch



Series: Daffodil Universe [9]
Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, F/M, Gen, Hymns, Poetry, Religion, Romance, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:55:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6733246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mary has a crisis of faith and desperately seeks a resolution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Solemn thing within the Soul

She could still sing to the boys, Mary found, which was a relief. When she sat beside them, she would take their calloused hands in hers if they wished, and be silent for a moment, but when she opened her mouth, she sang. She was not particularly proud of her voice— but she could carry the melody effortlessly and could adjust the pitch to be heard over the constant chatter and noise of the wards, so the boy before her did not have to strain to hear her singing to him, would know she was singing to him alone. Once, she had thought she would do well with lullabies; she had imagined how easy it would be to sing to her own baby in her arms, his small body nestled against her again without, as he had been so within her belly, but that milky dark night had never come to her, despite all her fervent prayers. Even so, and even after her Gustav died-- when time and light had bent beyond her reckoning and clocks no longer told the hour, but only the more and more of the nothing she had left, even then, she had still had her faith. She had still been able to pray and the words of the prayers had clung to her, small, tenacious consolations.

The past few weeks, she had lost that, suddenly, irrevocably it seemed. Even the admission—I have lost my faith—cost her, the acknowledgement of her exile, as if she looked about her again and again to see the empty desert without an oasis, the fathomless, murderous sea without any harbor. She did her best to fill her mind with tasks as she busied her body with labor; if before she had been diligent, she now was incessant, attempting to prevent any idleness that might allow the hopelessness to seize her. She had not realized just how much she had relied on her faith to sustain her through her losses, the War’s infinitely variable destructions, the shriek within her for the tender communion with Jedediah she was denied, always to be missing that crucial part of herself. Her belief had made her so completely whole she had not been aware of the sharpness of the fissures and the depths of the chasms within her—how dark the night was now without her Light! She had begun to wish for the boys to cry and groan, their audible suffering pulling her from her own limitless silence, their pain her surcease. Her guilt grew.

Today, she sat beside a man from Ohio or Indiana, she couldn’t quite recall which, and brought a cup of water to his mouth. He was in too much pain to talk, his brown eyes told her that, and she had no words to pray. She sat quietly for a few minutes, empty of thought or plan. As her own unease increased, she asked, “Would you like me to sing to you?” He managed a shrug she took for a nod. She did not make a conscious choice about the hymns she sang, other than avoiding “Nearer, My God, To Thee,” which she had found redoubled her pain. The music poured from her; she thought her voice was fuller and richer from the reaches of her spiritual abyss but she would have cut out her tongue to regain her faith, quicker than Andersen’s mermaid and with greater cause. She did not realize the degree of beauty her crisis leant her voice until the hymn ended and she found the ward had grown still around her, a moment caught in amber. She looked up to see Jedediah’s gaze upon her from across the room—his dark eyes looked at her with a potent mixture of devotion and recognition. She knew he understood her travail and wished he might comfort her but he knew she had gone to a place he could not follow. She thought his eyes were bright with tears. She touched the hand of the man in the bed, corporal or captain; he had fallen into a troubled sleep and when she rose, the chaplain was beside her, his hand at her elbow. His grasp was light but steady. She felt the regulated power he contained, his stability the oak’s transmutation of sunlight’s heat and glare into wood’s incontrovertible substance, the ephemeral into the pragmatic.

“Nurse Mary, you are needed. Elsewhere. I will sit with Captain Hodge now. And—later, if you wish, we might--” he broke off, the currents shifting in the room, Jed moving closer, two nuns slipping out, the rustle of a silk skirt in the hallway. She must not linger, must not risk plummeting over the edge, not when there was a need to fill, a need that might fulfill her even for a moment. She rose and felt the cold November air arrange itself around her. It crept along her sleeves and the layers that covered her-- chemise, stays, corset cover-- did little to warm her. She had given her black wool shawl to Melissa, a prostitute who had come with Sally to her clinic this week; she was a slender girl with hair like the honey her name evoked, but very thin and ill-dressed in worn blue muslin, designed to suggest an April sky, now greying with winter’s imminence. The black shawl had looked harsh against her coloring, but Mary knew it was warm and well-made, the black silk embroidered flowers around the border only one sign of the quality. Caroline had bought it for her when their mother died and Mary knew the solace of its folds. Now Mary herself was cold and heart-sore, but her bed was hers alone and her body, with only her soul and its dreams to trouble her.

She moved from place to place, looking always for the service she might undertake, the cup filled, bandage changed. She strove to convey the same sense of serene competence she had managed so well before; she thought few about her noticed the degree of her alteration, though Emma found more reason to leave the Confederate ward and never passed her by without some small touch of the hand, brief as a butterfly. Nurse Hastings was still acerbic but she was perhaps less bitter. The bond Hale had formed between them, the two nurses Poles to orient the world of Mansion House, had not broken. Anne was a strange comfort—her continuing criticism and sniping provided Mary with some suggestion that the world itself remained unchanged, only her place in it, and Anne’s eyes sometimes gave an intimation that she herself had been so lost. Perhaps Miss Nightingale’s lamp had not lit the way so well for all.

Mary thought she had not known a moment of peace since she’d awakened the morning after she’d drunk the bourbon. For a few minutes, she had lain in her bed, becoming aware of her body beneath the blankets—the stretch of her legs to her stockinged feet, the cool air against her bare arms, the tangled tickle of her unbound hair. Everything about her had seemed perfectly balanced, within and without, and she felt a sense of pervasive security, running through her with her blood, Jed’s voice offering her Donne—what it meant, what it could mean to be his sweet Molly. She had sighed with the luxuriant pleasure of it and the sigh had stirred her, her head began to ache, her swollen eyes throbbed. She would have welcomed a thousand such injuries in place of the darkness that had grown, even as the blue and yellow October sunrise had brightened the room, its loveliness irrelevant. The crisis she had come to the evening before, hastened by the bourbon, had not passed with the dawn, but had resolved itself into a leaden certainty: she was entirely bereft, in an infinite fall that made her long for hell.

Jed had been very careful with her over the past few weeks. That first morning, he had not appeared as she had expected, but there was a tray with hot coffee and toast, extravagantly buttered, and a white aster, its petals unblemished, from the last of the garden—each a message. She realized now she had still had her shame—at her drunkenness, her proposed adultery, her greedy failures, the utter dross of herself—to console her that day; she carried it within her mind and on her face, the skin tight from her weeping, the ache in her throat from the tears shed and those she had held within. Jed had found her later in the day when she was moving more slowly, the bourbon’s poison leached from her, winding bandages in an alcove. She was away, but could still see the wards before her, the men in their beds being tended, the afternoon light shifting through from gold to bronze. She had not raised her eyes to him when he came to her, but continued with her work, an indomitable Lachesis. Jed knelt before her then, as she recalled he had done the night before.

“Molly?” he said, just the name a complex inquiry—how was she, was she still his, why would she not look at him?

“I beg your pardon, Jedediah. For last night, I behaved… I said things,” she spoke haltingly while her hands danced through the worn strips of linen.

“Oh, Molly. You needn’t apologize—for last night, for anything. I only wish you did not have such a hard time of it, wish you suffered less--” he said, his face open before her.

“I was not—I was not a lady, I am ashamed, you will think--” she went on, the flush of the shame a balm, like myrrh.

“I wish you would not be ashamed, I wish I could have given you greater comfort, could have stayed with you. You are still just yourself, Molly, a lady and a nurse, a widow, a friend—you are the dearest love of my heart. That cannot, will not change. You have cared for me through so much worse, so patient with everything I did and said, my disgusting weakness—and you have never reproached me, though it was all of my own making… Please, Molly, please—let me give you this, there is so much I cannot, yet” he replied, speaking softly, intently, his plea at least something she could grant. She made a little nod and he opened his mouth again to speak and she saw the look in his eyes even warmer, his lips shaped to talk of embraces, and then he paused, studying her. He stood instead and laid his hand upon the crown of her head, bent slightly to murmur, “I hope, Molly, oh! I hope and pray,” and he did not kiss her upon her brow, or downcast eyes, or cheeks. He did not kiss her upon her parted mouth, but his palm gentle against her was her need of him met and exceeded, the only benediction she might expect.

Since then, he had found her every day. They still worked together easily and his impatient demands over patients could still bring a small twist to her mouth, the bit of smile she had remaining. There was joy in matching her own quick hands to his, to the proving of their synchrony but she would wake from it each time, the absence within her encroaching. He sat with her in the late afternoons when the night was falling and they needed to light the lamp in the library; he brought something hot to drink most days or something else to feed her—a journal article in German, a new tincture recipe for her clinic, a crystalline memory of his childhood. He said little enough and touched her less but he sat with her and she knew he was giving himself to her in this way, that he was offering his purposeful silence in place of the shrapnel of questions, the blow his sweet love-making would deliver. Some days, he did speak to her of love but only through Donne or Marvell, Keats and Catullus in turn, the words inflamed, vibrant, compelling—all spoken in a low voice he saved for these time, the lines fragmented so they both might shy from his intent. One day, he quoted Vaughan and she flinched and so he gleaned more of her trouble. That day, he laid his hand atop hers for a while and did not look at her while he hummed a half-forgotten song from his childhood. She shivered and he turned to her.

“Molly?” 

“I am only cold, the afternoon has a chill,” she replied.

“Where is your shawl then?” he asked.

“I gave it to someone who needed it more, she came with Sally one day. I am fine, it is warm enough in Mansion House and I have my cloak when I need to go out.” Jed shook his head a little.

“Of course, Molly. I see.” And then they sat together a while yet before she rose to help serve the dinners to the men, the activity necessary in all ways. She did not look back but he watched her walk from the room and then closed his eyes, to shed and keep the vision at once.

* * * * * * * * * * *

It had taken her a few days, longer than she would have expected, to notice the chaplain always about. She was trying so hard to stuff every moment with action there was no space for proper observation. Finally, slowly, she saw how he shared the room with her, balancing her movements but calmly; he filled the room around him with his goodness like the lilac’s sumptuous fragrance in a New Hampshire spring. He gave her searching glances, like the bee delving the flower’s throat, but she felt their sting without any charge of passion. 

He kept it up, even as they had visitors to Mansion House, some officers and a chaplain from Philadelphia to see some Pennsylvania boys. She occupied herself with the extra work of clean linens and meals and spared only a few moments to see the officers in their smart blue uniforms, like her nephew’s tin soldiers enlarged, and the chaplain, older, grey-whiskered, his suit black and linen crisp, a Roman nose and face to grace a coin. She worked and she sang and she sat with Jed. Henry Hopkins ministered to men ill and injured and dying and he had a way to smile at each one that she now envied.

It was just after noon, the ward quieter with men soothed to sleep by bellies full of stew or veins full of morphine, when Henry pulled a chair beside her. She was finishing the letter for the boy in the bed, finding it a curious puzzle to try and configure his halting words into something his mother could find comfort in, something still true to who he was inside his broken mind. He was young and newly arrived; she hoped he would heal enough to dictate the entire next letter himself, with only a suggestion for the parting “I think, ‘fondest regards, Your Son, Edward Hull.’” She set the paper down.

“Nurse Mary, I hope I am not interrupting?” the chaplain asked.

“No, no, it is done now. His mother will get something of him and perhaps next time, there will be more to write,” she replied.

“Nurse Mary, I think you are sorely troubled,” he said, allowing the statement to hang between them without any elaboration. She tilted her head and he went on.

“I have seen a look in your eyes these past days and weeks, a look I have known from my own mirror—I think you fear you have lost your way?” he hazarded, the words clean of pity or judgment.

“Chaplain, I do not even know anymore if it is I who am lost or if the God I believed in never existed. I hope it is the former, otherwise I would be—even more annihilated?” It was a relief to confess it and not worry that he would argue with her, like Jed would, or look at her with Emma’s unquestioning innocence and know that further explanation could be a contagion. Henry was used to listening, better than the nurses she felt, his skill unobscured by treatments to deliver or the womanly, motherly, sisterly touches of comfort that still were assessment of the degree of pain and what it merited in return.

“Have you prayed then?” he said gently.

“I have tried. I have tried so often and for so many hours—the words will not come but even if they did, they would be empty, as I am—it is, it is as if I alone have gone deaf, and all around me still hear—I am straining all the time to hear anything, any sound at all, and there is nothing,” she said.

“You have tried reading your Bible? Perhaps Job or the Psalms?” he offered.

“Oh, Chaplain, I think I have tried everything! I have read and read and thought, hoped, but I, nothing has changed and all the things that have troubled me are now so much worse, everything is wrong—yet that word is not enough! And even, everything, anything good—a soldier who lives, a friend’s kindness, even the simple beauties of nature, they are all lessened, at a remove from me. I see the nuns walking about, their faith about them, plain and heavy as their habits, their faces shine with it—and I am so jealous of them! All that is left to me is work, more and more—what shall I do if the War ends? And to hope it goes on, what kind of person have I become?” she finished, her voice near to a whisper at the end.

Henry paused then, before he spoke; she sensed he might suggest something he felt was more outré, unconventional. 

“Nurse Mary, have you perhaps, have you spoken about this with Dr. Foster? I realize, that is, there is no precedent, but I have noticed that sometimes, it seems, you and he understand each other in a way that is-- separate, as if your souls have a sort of kinship,” he made a small, uncomfortable gesture, “I am not suggesting there is anything inappropriate, of course, he is honorable and a married man, just that sometimes a… friend can find for us what we need before we can see it, the solution, and you might find the burden lighter, should you share it. With him.”

Mary considered what to say. She could tell by his tone that the chaplain was not suggesting, nor did he suspect, that she and Jedediah had a relationship that was in any way illicit. He had noticed the most benign aspect of their deep connection and rightly encouraged her to draw strength from it. She could not tell him the truth so she said what she could.

“Dr. Foster is… aware of my situation, he has tried to help me as best he can but this is an injury beyond his skill to repair. I think I must find my way alone, but it is so hard--” Mary was surprised to find the simplest words were those that triggered her tears, bitter tears that she could not stop. Her vision blurred and she felt, rather than saw, Henry reach over to hand her a large, clean handkerchief with embroidery in a corner, his initials she guessed. She wiped at her eyes, yet the tears continued to spill over her cheeks.

“Mar- Nurse Mary, would you allow me to introduce you to the chaplain visiting from Philadelphia? He is much older than I am and his background is… substantially different, I think the difference may be a help to you and the wisdom of his age and experience. It pains me to see you suffering so if there is aid at hand—if I cannot help you as I would wish, but I see that I cannot,” he trailed off. Mary’s tears had abated and the familiar burn of swollen eyes had returned. She saw Henry Hopkins sitting beside her with such disappointment in his gaze; she could tell how much he had wanted to be the one to restore her faith and tranquility and how it cut him to admit the failure. She thought of how his eyes followed Emma about as she moved so lightly through the rooms, his keen longing and his acceptance of the barriers between them as insurmountable. She turned the handkerchief over in her hands and saw the monogram, HCH, and wondered what the C was for. 

“Of course, yes, I will be happy to meet with the chaplain if you wish it, if you think it might help.” Mary was not very hopeful but was desperate enough to consider any possible path, no matter what lay in wait for her. She could not imagine what the chaplain from Philadelphia, who she thought had worked little close to the frontlines of battle, might offer her but she had never envisioned herself as a spiritual exile and there were more things in heaven and earth, she mused. “When shall I meet with him?”

“I will speak with him and see. I think he will likely have some time early in the evening, after supper. You two could meet in the library,” Henry suggested, clearly relieved she had acquiesced. He had regained his usual pleasant aspect and she wondered a little at the confidence he had in the elder chaplain to succeed where all else had been failure. “In the meantime, I will pray for you, Nurse Mary, if you will permit me and perhaps that will hasten the return of God’s grace to you.” She nodded. There was such kindness, so many beautiful souls in the world and yet, she still felt the creep of alienation more powerful than anything else.

* * * * * * * * * * *

She found the chaplain already sitting quietly in the library, the lamps lit, pools of ruddy gold in the book-brown room. He was older, but not elderly, and rested in his chair with a thick book open on his spare lap. His head was bent and she saw he wore a cap upon his head that gleamed darkly, his grey hair curled around it and all down his jaws. He looked up when she walked in, her skirt’s susurration announcing her. She looked upon him and did not feel the leap of hope within her breast as she had wished, like her childhood wish for a doll at Christmas, pure and fierce. He gestured for her to sit beside him.

“Nurse Phinney?” he asked. She nodded her head and waited.

“Chaplain Hopkins asked that I meet with you. I am Rabbi Jacob Frankel, the new chaplain for the Jews—well, the chaplaincy is new, I have been a rabbi for many years. Do you know what that is, a rabbi? It is like your minister, the one who leads your church. Are you still willing to talk with me?” Rabbi Frankel paused, prepared for her to dismiss him, she thought, as perhaps he had been dismissed before by those not of his faith. Mary thought of her own church, of its teachings that no one religion held a monopoly on the Truth of God, of its acceptance of all philosophy and science, and thought there was no reason to reject the help and wisdom this kind man was ready to offer her.

“Of course I am, Rabbi Frankel. That is what you prefer to be called? I would not offend you but I don’t know the forms your people follow,” she said, hesitantly.

“Rabbi, Chaplain—I answer to plain Mr. Frankel and at home I am Papa. I think you will feel most comfortable calling me Chaplain though,” he replied. “Your chaplain, young Hopkins, he didn’t say very much about why he thought we should meet. Can you tell me?” 

“I have, that is, I have lost my way—I have lost my faith,” she said quietly, ashamed. She had not thought it would be such a blow to say the words again, but it was. She felt diminished and she had a pain within her that grew infinitely sharper without ever finding the inflection point that led to numbness.

“Oh. That is the problem, eh? And it troubles you so greatly?” he asked, his tone even, unassuming. She lifted her head then, surprised.

“Of course it troubles me! How could it not? I have lost so much but this, I did not think it was something that could be lost--” she broke off. Perhaps this would be another fruitless hour, she thoughts, she should have brought bandages to wind while they spoke.

“Yes, well, I have found there are many kinds of people in this world and many kinds of faith. Some can never lose their faith for they have something in them that may never question—they may not lose the blue sky or the sun either. Some have so little that its loss troubles them not at all— they may forget it like the broken toys of their childhood. Some bring it out on their Sabbath only. And some others, like you, they are… stricken, at times, with doubts, they suffer. I think you may have noticed this since you have come to work among so many people mixing together, the variety of ways a man’s soul can be made. Forgive me, or a woman’s soul—just as various, though perhaps more tender,” he added. 

“So, Chaplain Frankel, you can help me? You know this problem—there is a solution? I have tried so hard with so little change,” she asked.

“Oh, Nurse Phinney, this is not a problem with a solution. Wait,” he interjected as she made a quick movement, the first gesture of rising to walk from the room, down the hallways, to pacing and scrubbing or knitting, or whatever she might find before sleep should take her, “Wait! Since it is not a problem with a solution, to help, to fix, we must change our perspective, yes, we must see it not as a problem but as something else. Can you think what that might be?” he asked. She looked more closely at him. He was looking at her very intently, his eyes bright. She remembered this kind of interaction from her time at the ladies’ academy, with the teachers who cared for the girls to truly learn, from her sessions with Alec when he saw she could grasp the geometry he was ready to teach her but even more than that, concepts she had yet but the faintest awareness of.

“But you are trying to teach me something and I do not know the answer. I have never, not with my own minister, I have never spoken with a minister or chaplain this way, I don’t understand,” she said, her confusion a sort of relief.

“We, my people, do things differently, I think you know, but how differently, I think not. Our young men study together for many years, since they are children really, to understand. Oh! if you could see them, with their chavrutas, they are paired to argue and question, to develop their faith through understanding of our laws and our philosophies, through challenge—frequent, bold, loud! We do not treat our women so, but I think there can be women with minds like a man’s, a mind strong enough to engage in these discussions-- we call them seder-- and perhaps, Nurse Phinney, you are such a woman. Can you not tell me an answer, then?” he said, settling himself into the armchair, comfortable. He was familiar with this then, she thought, familiar and untroubled.

“I don’t see how it cannot be a problem, Chaplain Frankel. For since I have felt this way, everything, every thought and action, has been disjointed, without a context,” she paused, searching.

“Has the world lost its meaning for you then?” he offered up, so simply, as if he had offered her a cup of tea or the sugar to go in it.

“I think, yes. How can I live this way?” she cried.

“Well, how are you living?” he replied.

“I am, I am working, I try to not let a moment go by without doing something and I try hard not to be alone, for it is worse then,” she admitted.

“And your work, you are a nurse? The Head Nurse, I think? So you run the hospital and look after sick men and the staff besides, I imagine?” he said.

“Yes, all of those things, whatever I can, for whomever. Sometimes I get too tired, so I sit for a while and one of the doctors sits with me for a bit,” she said.

“So, even when you are tired, you are with someone else to whom you may offer help, or just your company. I think you must keep doing this then, your work as you find it,” he said, as if they had arrived at the answer to a knotty question quite easily after all.

“What do you mean? To work and work, to never know if what I am doing is right?” she exclaimed.

“Oh, right and wrong—that is not a matter of faith, Nurse Phinney. Even a little child too young to consecrate to our God or even any man of any faith, they may know right from wrong. I believe you are a woman who knows very clearly what is right and that you seek to do it. No, we are discussing your faith, not your morality, for the latter is not in any question and I think the former is more secure than you imagine,” he said firmly.

“I don’t understand,” she said. Her voice was more tired than she thought as the few words lingered between them, a basic truth.

“Nurse Phinney, my faith is old, even older than yours, and I am old, much older than you, so I have seen much of what I will explain to you-- no more questions now, I think for you. My faith has something we call tikkun olam, it means, “repairing the world.” It means, how should I tell you, it means we act to fix or mend this world, to perfect it, in preparation for God’s return—we do this not through prayer alone but through mitzvot, good deeds, acts, as you are doing here in this hospital. In your desperation to regain your faith, you have acted it, your soul understanding without your mind’s knowledge, how it must act to be in accord with God, for so it is and has been. Do you see now?” he said more gently.

“But how am I to feel my faith again, if I have not truly lost it—if I am not blind, but only blind-folded, how can I see again?” she replied. What the chaplain, what the rabbi had said was new and unfamiliar, but she found she could begin to accept it—the child’s first taste of food after only suckling.

“I think I will let a wiser rabbi than I am help me answer you. One of our greatest rabbis was Maimonides and he was learned in so many, many ways, a rabbi, philosopher, scientist! What a gift! You wish to know God, to be aware of your knowledge within your mind—as your soul has remained aware through this crisis—but Maimonides taught us to describe God through what God is not. It is not that He is wise, but that He is not ignorant. Not that He exists, but He is not non-existent. Our desire to define God does not change or modify His essence, because that is unknowable. Whether you know God to be real does not change His reality. Can you see this?” he asked. Mary knew Rabbi Frankel hoped for her genuine comprehension, but also, that he was an experienced teacher and could see that she was only just learning what he had explained.

“I begin to but I am unsure. I, I don’t know,” she replied, wishing for the confidence she had had in her childhood when she understood the world so easily—stars and moon, water and stone, flower and tree and earth. Now there was shadow and doubt, smoke and fire and the air between them.

“Well, Maimonides also said, ‘Teach thy tongue to say “I do not know,” and thou shalt progress.’ It is growing late. I would like to retire but if you would let me, I would sing you a blessing first, a prayer,” he said, looking for her approval with the same patience that Henry had when he asked to pray for her, the same look that Jedediah had in his eyes when they sat together in the evenings. She nodded.

“We sing, well, not blessings, but I have been singing hymns to the men, to comfort them. I would like it if you did,” she said.

“I will sing this zemer for you, Nurse Phinney, ‘Eshet Chayil.’” And with hardly a pause, he began, his voice full and rich, the baritone strong and practiced. The sound, his voice and the words she didn’t understand, fell over her and she saw he was practicing tikkun olam with her, even his effort alone mending her torn mind. When he finished, they sat for a moment in the solid silence that came after the song.

“Thank you, Rabbi. What did it mean?” Mary asked.

“You will know it from the Bible, I think. ‘A woman of valor, who can find? For her price is far above rubies.’ And now, Nurse Phinney, I will bid you good night and thank you for letting and old man return to the chavruta myself tonight.” He rose and made a small bow, then walked out of the library. She thought of what he had said and what she had said; she began to see that to regain her faith she would need to accept that it was still there but that she could not grasp it so easily as before. She saw that she would find her way more easily through her work than through solitary introspection but that she would need to work without frenzy of activity, but with intention and presence. She suddenly felt wholly tired yet without the painful ache at the center of her mind. It seemed there had been more repair made this night than she had first appreciated.

* * * * * * * * * *

When she came to her room and lit the lamp, she saw there were two packages wrapped in brown paper lying on the bed. An envelope was tucked inside the smaller of the two. She recognized Jed’s elegant hand and ran her fingertips over the black ink, the ghost of the pen in his hand sidling near her own. She began to unwrap the first package, planning to save his letter to the end, the most important gift of the three; when she saw her own handwork, the tatted lace that edged the swaddle, its pure white now a dark cream with age though not use, she stopped and opened the envelope.

“My dearest Molly,  
The smaller package is something you will recognize without any need for clarification from me. I hope you will forgive me for asking Sally to return your gift—I have made sure she has ample supplies to create her own layette and I have thought that she will sew her child’s swaddling clothes with all your loving generosity woven into the cloth, while her stitches are each one her own private prayer for her baby. I think you deserve to keep all your memories, be they bitter or sweet—they are yours and precious. You would not be my Molly if you had not lived all the days before I met you.

The second package is intended to replace something else you have do not have anymore but for which there is still a great need. I know that it is not a conventional gift for two such as we are now, but you know the truth of my heart and I hope that you will accept this gift understanding how much I long to care for you, even in the smallest ways, even if the smallest ways are the only means I now have. It will perhaps offer some comfort to you in this winter of your soul, beyond what any words I would utter could do. Please, Molly, my beloved, please let me do this small thing for you. Always and with complete devotion, Jedediah.”

The hand that had held the swaddle in its grasp, gently fondling it, had fallen away as she read his letter and she found she had it clasped against her heart as she finished reading. She unwrapped the second package with steady hands she thought would tremble. Before her was a paisley cashmere shawl, richly, sinuously patterned, the color of spilled wine or the heart of a red rose. She thought of the simple black wool shawl she had given Melissa and nearly laughed at Jed’s replacement, a representation in every way of luxury, the wealth that he shared so thoughtfully, careless of any cost to himself. She drew it around her shoulders and it fell to her hem, the silky fringe brushing the wood floor. Her world had grown one step closer to perfection and with that one further step, she felt the intimation of her faith’s presence within her—not with the sudden verdant burst spring could bring but softly, like the first steady snow through a cold night, a night that never grew dark.

**Author's Note:**

> So, first and foremost, this story was written with nothing but respect for both Judaism and Unitarianism and I take full responsibility for any factual or conceptual misunderstandings as I practice neither religion but am roughly familiar with both. I tried to do reasonable research online but would happily stand to be corrected if I have misinterpreted anything crucial or otherwise. That being said, I wanted to write a story about Mary having a crisis of faith, truly faith and not just about her relationship with Jed, and then, getting it back. There were really 3 Jewish chaplains during the Civil War, so I picked the one who would have the greatest chance of getting to VA though I doubt it actually happened. I thought my Mary’s Unitarian background would make her receptive to another religious viewpoint and as they say, there are no atheists in foxholes. The title, as always, compliments of Miss Dickinson (she never disappoints). A few more research-y items:
> 
> For the translation of Eshet Chayil: http://www.zemirotdatabase.org/view_song.php?id=92
> 
> Moshe ben Maimon (Hebrew: משה בן מימון Moshe ben Maymon), or Mūsā ibn Maymūn (Arabic: موسى بن ميمون), acronymed Rambam (/ˈrɑːmbɑːm/; Hebrew: רמב״ם – for "Rabbeinu Moshe Ben Maimon", "Our Rabbi/Teacher Moses Son of Maimon"), and Graecized (and subsequently Latinized) Moses Maimonides (/maɪˈmɒnɪdiːz/[5] my-mon-i-deez), a preeminent medieval Sephardic Jewish philosopher and astronomer,[6] became one of the most prolific and influential Torah scholars and physicians[7][8][9] of the Middle Ages. Maimonides admiration for the neo-Platonic commentators led him to doctrines which the later Scholastics did not accept. For instance, Maimonides was an adherent of "negative theology" (also known as "Apophatic theology".) In this theology, one attempts to describe God through negative attributes. For instance, one should not say that God exists in the usual sense of the term; it can be said that God is not non-existent.
> 
> Jews believe that performing of ritual mitzvot (good deeds, commandments, connections, or religious obligations) is a means of tikkun olam, helping to perfect the world, and that the performance of more mitzvot will hasten the coming of the Messiah and the Messianic Age. In Jewish thought ethical mitzvot as well as ritual mitzvot are important to the process of tikkun olam. Maimonides writes that tikkun olam requires efforts in all three of the great "pillars" of Judaism: Torah study, acts of kindness, and the ritual commandments.
> 
> On Jewish chaplaincy during the Civil War: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/rabbi-chaplains-of-the-civil-war/?_r=0
> 
> One year after Congress stipulated that Army chaplains be Christians, Abraham Lincoln appointed the Army's first Jewish chaplain.
> 
> Nicknamed the "sweet singer of Israel," Rabbi Jacob Frankel was the vastly popular rabbi and cantor of Philadelphia's Congregation Rodeph Shalom. A native of Bavaria, Frankel came from a musical family and was already an accomplished cantor when he acceded to the Philadelphia post.
> 
> Henry Vaughan (17 April 1621 – 23 April 1695) was a Welsh author, physician and metaphysical poet. He is chiefly known for his religious poetry contained in Silex Scintillans, which was published in 1650, with a second part published in 1655.
> 
> Gaius Valerius Catullus (/kəˈtʌləs/; c. 84 – 54 BC) was a Latin poet of the late Roman Republic who wrote in the neoteric style of poetry. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art. Catullus' poems were widely appreciated by other poets. He greatly influenced poets such as Ovid, Horace, and Virgil. After his rediscovery in the late Middle Ages, Catullus again found admirers. His explicit writing style has shocked many readers.
> 
> Andrew Marvell (/ˈmɑːrvəl/; 31 March 1621 – 16 August 1678) was an English metaphysical poet, satirist and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1659 and 1678. During the Commonwealth period he was a colleague and friend of John Milton. Marvell's most celebrated lyric, "To His Coy Mistress", combines an old poetic conceit (the persuasion of the speaker's lover by means of a carpe diem philosophy) with Marvell's typically vibrant imagery and easy command of rhyming couplets. Other works incorporate topical satire and religious themes.
> 
> Lachesis is the second of the three Fates in Greek mythology, the one who apportions the length of thread.


End file.
